Tuesday, November 27, 2018

UCBC Halkett Bay Sponge Dive 12/11/2018

Adam Taylor of The Underwater Council of British Columbia arranged a dive of the glass sponge bioherm near the Halkett Pinnacle in Halkett Bay Provincial Marine Park. Many will know this site by a different name (Spongebob). Huge thanks to Adam and Sea Dragon Charters for the amazing dives, and for bringing together such a varied cross section of divers for comments on diving the site. Vladimir Chernavsky and myself were lucky to represent GUE-BC, thanks to Liz Tribe. GUE-BC had been building relationships with the Marine Life Sanctuaries Society of BC and now the UCBC. The opportunities for citizen science, photogrammetry, Project Baseline data collection and collaboration were very exciting!

This was an "outreach" day to introduce a broad cross section of divers to the new mooring buoy that the UCBC had installed at the site. It was a heroic installation, and professionally done. I was able to see some of the install photos, and it was some serious underwater work!

Neil McDaniel provided a sponge biology talk as part of Adam's dive briefing. It was very informative and detailed.14 divers were on the outing including Greg McCracken, Deirdre Forbes McCracken, Hamish Tweed, Amy Oxox, Rebecca Barrett, Amy Liebenberg, Diana Belton, Neil McDaniel, Doug Swanston, Vladimir Chernavsky and myself. Also along were Vanessa Heal & Andy Wiggs who helped with topside video and photos. There were several interviews done of the dive teams as well.  Rounding out the day were 4 additional divers on Glen Dennison's boat including John Congdon & Tanya Prinzing.

From my perspective the day could not have been better. While not sunny, the rain held off. Loading up the boat went smoothly and efficiently.


The wind played a bit of havoc with current and waves. This made it challenging to catch the new mooring buoy, but Adam and the crew of the Sea Dragon did a great job. What really made the dive was the visibility. It was amazing. Coming down the new line, you could see the sponge reef from at least 40 feet away. It was magical, as this photo from Vlad showed.


On the first dive, Adam suggested everyone just orientate themselves with the site. The mooring buoy was anchored to a bedrock outcropping. Surrounding it was bare rock, with a few sponges. It was a perfect place. Here you could see two divers near the line.


From the buoy, navigation was quite simple. Heading North East would bring you to a drop off, and following that to the North would bring you into the main sponges. Carrying on to the North East would bring you through a saddle of mud, to the main bioherm. To be honest, skipping that and following the crest of sponges around back to the mooring buoy was a great way to go. The Aquarium had a temperature sensor installed on the ridge, which we found.


The number of divers on the site was impressive. Here was Adam leading a group on a tour.


And more divers!


Everywhere there were quillback rockfish. I counted over 20.


And several juvenile yellow eye rockfish.


Schools of perch were everywhere too, glinting in the lights.


But the stars of the show were the beautiful sponges.




It was too bad, but the day would have to come to an end. I put together some video from the trip, and will leave off here with it!



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